‘It’s a me, Doctor Mario!’ Nintendo develops new bedside manner for the future

Nintendo wants to help you sleep by using a new monitor that sits by your bedside and attempts to improve the quality of time spent in the land of nod instead of trying to keep us all glued to video games for hours on end.

The Japanese video game great announced that the Quality of Life [QOL] Sensor has been developed with US company ResMed that specifically focuses on products to solve sleep disorders and that it will be available in the financial year ending March 2016.

“By using our know-how in gaming... to analyse sleep and fatigue, we can create something fun,” said chief executive Satoru Iwata, according to Reuters.

An image that Iwata revealed at a media conference showed a device that is around the size of a hand and is designed to be placed on a bedside table. To track sleep it uses microwave transmission sensors and that data is then sent to cloud based servers to help the owner achieve a healthier sleeping pattern.

The new system uses the data to make various recommendations such as getting more exercise or changing diet and the feedback will be available on “smart devices”, though it failed to give more details on these devices.

“Fatigue and sleep are themes that are rather hard to visualize in more objective ways. At Nintendo, we believe that if we could visualize them, there would be great potential for many people regardless of age, gender, language or culture,” Iwata added.

Pricing is a closely guarded secret, however, and the firm has said nothing on that side of things except for the fact the device could be offered via a subscription based scheme instead of for a one-off cost.

"We only start something new if we think we will be able to create a big market, but as I'm not able to discuss pricing plans and other details today I don't think there's much point in giving a figure for our projected scale,” Iwata said.